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Christmas is the most magical time of the year, | 0:00:04 | 0:00:05 | |
the one day when you can eat chocolate, nuts and sprouts | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
and watch television...apart from all the other days you can do that. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
Whether you're a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu, | 0:00:11 | 0:00:15 | |
a Jedi or a Womble, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:17 | |
Christmas is everywhere. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
On television, | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
in the high street, | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
even in normally sacred places like churches. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
Christmas is such a big deal | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
that even Richard Dawkins probably does it | 0:00:28 | 0:00:31 | |
and he thinks God's a twat who isn't even there! | 0:00:31 | 0:00:33 | |
But what is Christmas anyway? | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
Do we still need it in 2016? | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
I'm going on a journey right up Christmas to discover | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
whether the true meaning of Christmas has any meaning today, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
or whether that meaning snapped off somewhere along the way, | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
leaving it meaningless... | 0:00:49 | 0:00:51 | |
whatever that means. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
I'll be talking to experts about every single Christmas | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
that's ever happened, as well as finding out where | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
Christmas traditions and giant tubes of Jaffa Cakes come from. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:02 | |
How do they make chickens into turkeys? | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
Turkey and chicken are two separate birds. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
-You're joking me. -No. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
So join me, Philomena Cunk, | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
as I step into Christmas and back out again. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:20 | |
This programme contains very strong language | 0:01:20 | 0:01:24 | |
Christmas, isn't just tinsel and a long Doctor Who - | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
it's a festival with traditions stretching back | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
across hundreds of years and almost as many Christmases. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:40 | |
It's hard to imagine now, but, when Christmas first began, | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
Christ wasn't even in it. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
Psycho Danny Dyer hasn't always been in EastEnders, | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
even though he feels like part of the furniture... | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
especially when he's trying to act. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
Centuries before Jesus arrived, | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
late December was already a time of celebration for the pagans, | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
who existed so long ago there aren't any YouTubes of them, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
so we've had to make do with this picture. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
To find out what the pagans were, I spoke to an expert. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
Were there pagans before there were humans? | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
No. You've got to be a human to do anything. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
Pagans are just people who lived in Europe before Christianity arrived. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:20 | |
How difficult was it for the pagans to get about on all fours? | 0:02:20 | 0:02:25 | |
They didn't travel on all fours, they travelled upright like we do. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
The pagans worshipped nature, just like Chris Packham, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:32 | |
and their calendar revolved around two big annual events, | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
also like Chris Packham. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
One of these events took place in late December and was known as the | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
winter solstices-es. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
What was the winter soltits? | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
It's the winter solstice. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
Stols...stolstice? | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
-Solstice. -Stolestice. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:52 | |
-Solstice. -Solstice. -You've got it. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
It's that magical time, midwinter and midsummer, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
when the sun seems to stand still. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
To the eye, it appears to stop moving along the horizon. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
Well, you're not meant to look at it, are you? | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
Because it hurts your eyes. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:08 | |
You can look at it when it rises and you can look at it when it sets, | 0:03:08 | 0:03:11 | |
-then you can... -No, you can't. It makes you go blind. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
You can. Believe... trust me, you can. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:15 | |
You can't. That's probably why you've got glasses. | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
As well as blinding themselves, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
the pagans celebrated the solstice by cutting down holly and ivy and | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
dragging it into their homes, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
along with a giant Yule log which they'd set fire to. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
It sounds rubbish, but with no App Store to speak of, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
killing trees and plants was as good as entertainment got, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
even at Christmas. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:36 | |
Of course, for most people, | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
it wasn't really Christmas until the birth of Jesus Christ, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
an icon who was almost as revered back then as Beyonce is today. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:46 | |
Jesus's mum was this woman, the Virgin Mary, | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
who one night got visited by an angel | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
and told she'd been gotten pregnant by a Holy Ghost. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
Of course, actual ghosts jizz ectoplasm, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
which only contains ghost sperm. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
But Jesus wasn't born a phantom, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
leading experts to believe Mary wasn't impregnated by a real ghost, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:09 | |
but by a man in a sheet, like in Scooby-Doo. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
Mary's husband Joseph didn't mind his son being God's rather than his | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
because he knew God would probably buy Jesus loads of toys | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
and have him on weekends, which would take the pressure off. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
As the birth neared, | 0:04:24 | 0:04:26 | |
Mary and Joseph travelled to O Little Town Of Bethlehem | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
only to discover the inn they'd booked had no rooms in it, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
so, instead, they were put up in a stable. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
Today, that'd lead to one red star on TripAdvisor. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
Back then, it led to one big star in the sky, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
which God put there, probably so they could see the baby coming out. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
Mary had to give birth here on the floor, | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
like a crack addict, and then lay him in a manger. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
Manger is another word for trough | 0:04:52 | 0:04:55 | |
and it's where we get the name for modern sandwich chain | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
Ready To Trough. | 0:04:58 | 0:04:59 | |
The baby Jesus wasn't an ordinary baby. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
He was born with a big yellow circle around his head, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
which must have been hell for Mary to push out, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:07 | |
especially when you think nothing had ever been in or out of her down | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
below before. If only he had been born a ghost after all, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
then he could've just floated out, clanking chains and going woo. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
Why do you think it's important that Jesus was born? | 0:05:18 | 0:05:23 | |
Would it have been more interesting if he'd been built, like R2-D2? | 0:05:23 | 0:05:28 | |
It would have been more interesting, | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
but the important thing is that he can identify with us | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
and he was a real human being. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
-It makes him more sort of relatable, I suppose. -Yes, very much so. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
But then, if he's meant to be like an ordinary bloke and he wanted to | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
come across as an ordinary bloke, how come he had all, like, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
angels and kings at his stable on his birthday? | 0:05:48 | 0:05:52 | |
-Well, that was a bit weird, wasn't it? -Mmm. -Although, of course, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
I would want to say that angels are around all the time. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
You don't necessarily see them, there and then, but sometimes | 0:05:59 | 0:06:04 | |
you catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye, | 0:06:04 | 0:06:07 | |
or maybe you smell a nice fragrance... | 0:06:07 | 0:06:12 | |
-Vanilla? -Maybe. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
How many three wise men were there? | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
-Who knows? -Oh. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
And I think only one of the Gospels refers to there being three. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
It's just three is a good number, isn't it? | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
-Yeah. -It looks good. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:26 | |
But there could have actually been 15 three wise men? | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
Quite possibly, yes. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:30 | |
It's humbling to think that Jesus started out with nothing, | 0:06:30 | 0:06:34 | |
born not in a palace, but in a stable, | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
just the ordinary son of an ordinary woman and an ordinary man, | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
and God Almighty. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
Incredibly, the day he was born was only the beginning of Jesus's life. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:48 | |
As a young man, he kept a low profile in the wood industry. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
But, when he was about 30, his career took off. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
He went on to appear in a number of | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
thrilling and controversial paintings, windows and films. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
Today, Christ lives in the hearts of millions of believers, | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
but still spends Sundays here, in his dad's house, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
so let's go and see if he's in. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
No-one was in, as usual, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
probably because the Church Wi-Fi isn't as good as Starbucks'. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
But standing in this old, creaky building | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
gives you a real sense of history. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
Thanks to Jesus's popularity, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
Christmas was celebrated for hundreds of years, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
celebrated by people who were buried long ago | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
but are still alive in the form of drawings of themselves, | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
some dating back as far as the Middle Ages. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
In the Middle Ages, did they know it was the Middle Ages, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:40 | |
or did they just think, "This is now"? | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
You know, how did they know that they were halfway through time? | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
They thought "this is now" | 0:07:47 | 0:07:48 | |
and they thought they were incredibly advanced, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
this is the greatest moment that society would reach to. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
It'd be amazing, wouldn't it, to get someone, | 0:07:53 | 0:07:55 | |
-get a Tudor back that we could resuscitate... -Yes. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
-..cryogenically or something... -Yes. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
..and then show him what had happened since he died? | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
-It would blow his mind, wouldn't it? -It would. The internet... | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
-The internet. -The internet. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
-Google. -Cars, aeroplanes... -Fitbit watches. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
Fitbits. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
One thing our time traveller would recognise is the tradition | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
of getting drunk and acting up at Christmas, which, back then, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
was known as wassailing. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
So, what was wassailing? | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
Is that like a, sort of...a bit like bantz now? | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
-What's bantz? -Bantz, it's like when someone's acting like a prick. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
Oh, really? What it is is basically a group of people, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
usually a group of men, go around from house to house | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
with a big bowl of drink | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
and they knock on your door and they sing songs and the idea is that | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
you're going to swap a drink from their bowl for a gift. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
So it was a bit like trick or treating then, was it? | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
It was very like trick or treating. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
And what sort of costumes would they do? | 0:08:56 | 0:08:57 | |
Because there were already covered in shit, weren't they, with, like, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
slugs on them and mud and everything? | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
They didn't usually wear costumes. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
It was also a way of creating community cohesion, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
going from house to house, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
it was something that was supposed to be fun as well. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
So that's really the very early beginnings of | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
going from house to house singing carols. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
Because the history lady said that, we've now cut to this - | 0:09:18 | 0:09:23 | |
some boys singing carols in a church...on earth. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:29 | |
THEY SING "DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH" | 0:09:29 | 0:09:34 | |
OK, OK, I get it, yeah, thanks. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
How do you get the music into the words? | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
Like, how do you attach the music to the words in your throat? | 0:09:49 | 0:09:55 | |
We tend to attach the words to the music instead. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
You attach the words to the music? | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
-Yeah. -As it's coming up through your throat? | 0:10:00 | 0:10:03 | |
So does it feel like...? Where does the music come from? | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
Does it feel like it's coming from your stomach, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
like you're going to be sick? | 0:10:08 | 0:10:09 | |
But it's, like, nice sick? | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
Kind of, I guess. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
Not all Christmas songs are quite so religious. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
In the 1970s, groups like Slade reinvented the carol, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:21 | |
appearing on our TV screens, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
showcasing a new form of singing called shouting. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
MUSIC: Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
This music was loud, probably to keep Jimmy Savile away. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:35 | |
For years, having a Christmas number one was the ultimate music industry | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
badge of honour, | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
right up there with choking to death on your own sick. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
More recently, songs released from glossy TV shows like X Factor | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
took over the Christmas number one slot. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
What's clever is that these songs | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
have got absolutely no Christmas in them whatsoever, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
probably because if Simon Cowell touches anything | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
to do with Christ, he catches fire. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
Meanwhile, back in the past, | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
by the time the Tudor era arrived and the music all sounded | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
like what you're hearing now, Christmas had become an excuse | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
for gastronomic indulgence. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:12 | |
Tudor feasts were huge | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
and often included roast goose or swan or peacock, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
basically a big bird roasted whole. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
That might sound traumatic, but, in the days before television, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
they didn't know big birds have a person inside. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:29 | |
To find out more about Tudor eating habits, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
I spoke to food expert Jay Rayner. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
So, what sort of things did Tudor people eat at Christmas? | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
They ate things like peacock, didn't they? | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
What goes with peacock? | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
What kind of gravy? | 0:11:43 | 0:11:44 | |
There is evidence that they ate very exotic things, | 0:11:44 | 0:11:49 | |
but that would have been the very, very richest people. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
I suppose the best thing about them as well is that tail | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
and that's not going to taste of anything, is it? | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
-No, that's purely for display. -Hmm. -Yeah. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
A Tudor Christmas, then, they'd have peacock, like you say... | 0:11:58 | 0:12:03 | |
-No, I think like YOU said. -The Royals had peacock? | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
I don't know how much peacock was eaten in Tudor days, I'll be honest. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:12 | |
How did that affect their bowels, you know, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:14 | |
what comes out of their back holes? | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
I don't know. I suppose, if they were eating too much, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
it would have caused certain bowel issues. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
I suppose meat, lots of meat... | 0:12:21 | 0:12:23 | |
-Lots of meat can... -..compacted together. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
Can compact, yes. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
And make sort of big, hard stools. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
It would have been uncomfortable, I imagine, but I'm only guessing. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
See, that would've been the first bit that I'd have gone to | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
if I was a food expert. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
Just when our ancestors were getting well into Christmas indulgence, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
history shat out someone who was allergic to fun, Oliver Cromwell, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
king of the Puritans. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
Cromwell was a Member of Parliament who wouldn't wear smart clothes and | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
never smiled, a bit like Jeremy Corbyn. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
And, just like Corbyn, he wanted to change the country. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
But instead of sitting down on a train, | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
he got off his arse and did something about it - | 0:12:59 | 0:13:01 | |
by starting a Civil War. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
Civil War is like a real war, but not abroad, so it's cheaper, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
and that meant ordinary people could start one, not just kings. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:12 | |
The English Civil War divided the country down the middle, | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
like a sort of tooled-up Brexit. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
Cromwell won and cut the king's head off, | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
which meant he couldn't be the king any more, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
even if everyone changed their minds. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
Now the British public had taken back control. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
No longer did they have to do whatever the king said. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
Instead, they were free to do whatever Cromwell said. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
It turned out Cromwell hated all of the things kings like, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
like feasting and burping and music and throwing chicken legs over his | 0:13:38 | 0:13:41 | |
shoulder and laughing, and that was just the tip of the turnip, | 0:13:41 | 0:13:45 | |
because, in 1647, Cromwell banned Christmas. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:49 | |
According to the Puritans, Christians shouldn't celebrate | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
Christmas because it's not in the Bible. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
Instead, they should be inside a church, which isn't in the Bible, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
reading the Bible, which isn't in the Bible. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
The ban on Christmas continued until after Cromwell's death, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:07 | |
but, by 1660, we'd found a new king, up a tree. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
The new king even had a head, | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
although it looked a bit like it belonged to Boycie | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
off Only Fools And Horses. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
And now the monarch was back and the Puritans had buggered off, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
Christmas was free to become more festive and less religious. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
For years, Jesus H Christmas was the number one face of the festive | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
period, very much the Captain Birdseye of Christmas Day, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:32 | |
but his rule over his mighty tinsel kingdom was to be threatened by | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
this man, Father Christmas, | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
street name - Santa Claus. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:41 | |
Like Jesus, Father Christmas is used as a bribe to make children behave, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
although, in his case, the prize isn't eternal salvation, | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
but presents. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
No wonder the moment Santa came on the scene | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
it was game over for Jesus, | 0:14:54 | 0:14:55 | |
who had to accept a lower ranking job in the global icon industry. | 0:14:55 | 0:15:00 | |
So, where did Santa come from? | 0:15:00 | 0:15:02 | |
If you're thinking the North Pole, | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
that's because your parents lied to you. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
He actually stepped out of the pages of history. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
Where did Father Christmas come from? | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
Father Christmas comes from Saint Nicholas | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
and he is a fourth-century Greek saint and bishop, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:20 | |
and he was very renowned for giving presents to the poor | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
and particularly he gave presents to these three girls. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
If he hadn't given them the money, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
they would have had to go off and be prostitutes. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
So why was he knocking about with these prostitutes? | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
I don't think he knew them very well, it's just that... | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
Well, well enough to give them gifts. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
..give them money. I don't think... | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
I think he just wanted to save them from the horrors of... | 0:15:41 | 0:15:44 | |
-I think because basically... -They all say that, don't they? | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
-They do. -How come shops have Father Christmases, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
but they don't have Jesuses? | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
Is Jesuses the right term? | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
-Is it Jesi, or...? -I think we'd say figures of Jesus. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
Figures of Jesus. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
I think that Father Christmas himself would probably have | 0:16:00 | 0:16:02 | |
preferred there to be figures of Jesus because, in fact, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
there is a medieval story that Saint Nicholas got in a punch-up | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
about whether or not God or Jesus was greater | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
and was thrown into prison, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:11 | |
so he was obviously very exercised about the purity of religion. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
It's all coming out, isn't it? | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
You know, because, like, I didn't know that he used to hang about with | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
prostitutes or get into fights. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
Now I'm feeling less...happy with him coming down my chimney. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:29 | |
Despite being the stuff of nightmares, | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
Santa is the world's most popular home intruder, probably because, | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
unlike other home intruders, he doesn't leave a turd | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
on your living room carpet, but a pile of gifts. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:41 | |
Santa has a list of good and bad children. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:45 | |
The good children will get lots of presents and so, it turns out, | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
will the bad children. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:50 | |
In fact, the only ones who won't get very much are the poor children - | 0:16:50 | 0:16:54 | |
that's because Santa judges a child's goodness | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
based largely on parental income. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
The sense of magical wonder on a child's face as they open their | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
presents, which allegedly makes Christmas worthwhile, | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
can last for up to ten seconds. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
That's why, for many, Christmas is synon-nonymous with little ones. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:13 | |
Adults lose the ability to see Father Christmas, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
so, if you want to know more about him, you have to ask small adults, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
which are known as children. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:21 | |
-Hello, who are you? -I'm Archie, who are you? | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
Philomena. Have you ever met Father Christmas? | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
I have. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:28 | |
Where did you meet him? | 0:17:28 | 0:17:29 | |
I met him...next to Westfield. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
And what was he doing there? Was he shopping or something? | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
I think...I'm not quite sure if Father Christmas is rich. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
Mmm. I don't think he is. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
How did he get all the presents in, like, lots of times? | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
I think he just shoplifts. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
OK. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:49 | |
Do you think Father Christmas has ever met Batman? | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
In my opinion, Batman's not real. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
In my opinion, Batman's not real - it's just a man called Bruce. | 0:17:55 | 0:18:01 | |
So you don't think they've met? | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
I think Superman and Father Christmas have met. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
Do you think that Father Christmas will still be allowed in the country | 0:18:07 | 0:18:11 | |
-after Brexit? -Yeah, he'll still be allowed in the country. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
-Will he? -Yeah, because the police don't know where he's in the air. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
Like David Bowie, Santa experimented with many different looks, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
finally settling on the familiar fat jolly laughing man look | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
in the late 1800s. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
The Queen Victorians were batshit for Christmas | 0:18:28 | 0:18:31 | |
and popularised many of the traditions we still do | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
for no good reason today. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
For instance, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
did what his fellow Germans had been doing for years and had a tree | 0:18:39 | 0:18:43 | |
installed in his lounge. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:45 | |
Albert's tree would remain the most heavily decorated piece of wood to | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
grace Buckingham Palace until the day Roger Moore was knighted. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
The Christmas tree is still the centrepiece | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
of most festive decorations. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
It's covered in lights, chocolates and baubles, | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
which is what circles are called at Christmas. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
There are also these characteristic vines | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
from the most festive plant on earth - tinsel. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:08 | |
Tinsel became a decoration because you can't do anything else with it. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
It's horrible in salads and won't boil down for soup. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
For years, the best Christmas decoration | 0:19:16 | 0:19:18 | |
was the Blue Peter Advent Crown, | 0:19:18 | 0:19:20 | |
which took a load of coat hangers and tinsel and cleverly transformed | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
them into a load of tinsel round some coat hangers. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
Now, you'll see how it all fits together. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
Today, some people choose to turn the outside of their homes | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
into a giant Advent Crown. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
A jolly house covered in electric lights may be expensive | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
and use a lot of power, | 0:19:38 | 0:19:39 | |
but it's the perfect way to cheer up a world worried about climate change | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
and dwindling resources. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
Of course, in Queen Victorian times, | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
only the super rich had fancy decorations. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
Ordinary, poor people had to celebrate Christmas | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
by coughing and counting their surviving offspring. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
Life in Queen Victorian times was hard. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
The streets were full of urchins and rippers, and there was so much | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
poverty that people used to go to prison just to get some bread. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
But there was one man who cared - | 0:20:06 | 0:20:08 | |
the greatest prime minister Britain ever had - | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
Sir Charles Dickings. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
Charles Dickings wanted people to be generous to those in greater | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
need, like the poor, the homeless or the dead, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
so he wrote something called A Christmas Carol, | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
which was something called a book. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
As seen in this powerful and evocative adaptation, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
A Christmas Carol is about Ebenezer Scrooge, | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
a character almost as fully realised | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
as Disney's superior Scrooge McDuck. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
Unlike Scrooge McDuck, he's human. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
And unlike most humans, he hates Christmas. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
But then, in a terrifying development, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
he starts getting visited by ghosts, | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
like his house is built on some sort of Indian burial ground. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
The ghosts take him forward and backwards in time to see different | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
Christmases, like that thing on Facebook that shows you old haircuts | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
and people you don't talk to anymore. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:00 | |
One ghost shows him the future, but it's only by a year, | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
so it's still a Victorian future. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
As it is, he sees a future in which everyone's delighted he's dead. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:11 | |
This convinces him that Christmas is actually brilliant, which, | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
to be honest, the ghost could have done | 0:21:14 | 0:21:16 | |
by giving him a Chocolate Orange - nobody can argue with that. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
After the Victorian era, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
good will to all men caught on so much | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
that it was almost 12 whole years before everyone on the planet | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
decided to kill each other in the mud. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
Although it was scheduled to be over by Christmas, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
the war with Germany lasted four years. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
Mechanised conflict is the most horrifying legacy | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
of the 20th century, as anyone who's seen Robot Wars will agree. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:45 | |
But at Christmas 1914, there was a brief ceasefire. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
The fighting stopped. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:50 | |
Soldiers got out of their holes and joined together in a place called | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
No Man's Land, showing that, even at moments of peace, | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
men will still divide into two sides and try to beat one another. | 0:21:57 | 0:22:02 | |
The Great War claimed over 17 million lives, making it the | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
worst incident of football-related violence of all time. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
After the First World War, Christmas spirit once again reigned supreme, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
until the Second World War. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:15 | |
We don't know if Christmas happened during Second War Two | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
because there simply aren't any records. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
But there's no footage of Hitler or Churchill in Santa hats either, | 0:22:20 | 0:22:24 | |
so it's safe to assume it was parked while they twatted each other. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
Once Hitler had defeated the Nazis by blowing his own brains out, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
Christmas returned with a bang | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
and a second period of food-loving indulgence dawned. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
The modern Christmas dinner soon became an important | 0:22:38 | 0:22:40 | |
cultural cornerstone of both society and gravy adverts. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
Mum made the gravy. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
Could you talk me through what makes a perfect Christmas dinner? | 0:22:48 | 0:22:52 | |
Once you've got the right people round the table, | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
you need a light starter. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:56 | |
-If you give people too much... -Not prawn cocktails? | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
No, no... Well, I don't know. A good prawn cocktail is a lovely thing. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:02 | |
-I don't like prawns. -Do you not? -No, they're bottom feeders. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
OK, I tend to do platters of charcuterie, salami and ham, and | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
maybe some pickles and things for people to pick up. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
-I won't have that. -You wouldn't have that? -No. -No? OK. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
And then you come to the main event, | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
so maybe a three-bird roast or a roast goose... | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
-bread sauce, gravy. -But I don't understand bread sauce. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
It's a great way of making a really savoury sauce. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
Bread and sauce are two completely different things, aren't they? | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
Well, they are, but you can grind the bread down | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
and then cook it in milk to make a really good sauce. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
It just looks like, sort of...jizz. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
Thanks to all this food-based indulgence, | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
scientists now believe that 80% of all burps occur at Christmas, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
threatening to put a hole in the oz-one layer at precisely the | 0:23:51 | 0:23:55 | |
moment the sky is full of vulnerable reindeer. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
Eating aside, the other popular form of Christmas indulgence | 0:23:58 | 0:24:02 | |
is gift-buying from shops. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
Critics say Christmas is too commercialised | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
and that the Bible has being replaced by the Argos catalogue, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
just because it's got a better selection of hair straighteners. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
Recently, Christmas shopping has started to look less like a | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
Supermarket Sweep Christmas special | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
and more like a civil war with carrier bags. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
No wonder more people than ever stay indoors shopping on the computer. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:26 | |
So, is Christmas all just about buying stuff these days? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
How much money gets made at Christmas? | 0:24:29 | 0:24:31 | |
Altogether, I'm sure we spend | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
hundreds of millions of pounds at Christmas. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:35 | |
And how big a cut does the Church get? | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
The Church doesn't get anything. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:39 | |
-They don't get anything? -No. No. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
The supermarket near me has got about 30 tills. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
How many tills does Amazon have? | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
They must have loads. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:50 | |
-They don't have any tills. -What? | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
They have a computer. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
-One computer? -Yeah. Because no-one goes there, do they? | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
-They just... -I know, but I thought they still had to ring it through. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
Mmm. No, the computer does all that. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
So there's one man at a computer, just going...? | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
No, I don't think there's a man. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:06 | |
No, no, it just goes automatically. You do that. You're the till. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:11 | |
Making money is so important at Christmas that shops pull out all | 0:25:11 | 0:25:15 | |
the stops to fill the screen with jolly images of buying things | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
and their adverts have evolved from cheerful animated catalogues full of | 0:25:18 | 0:25:22 | |
famous people smiling at you | 0:25:22 | 0:25:23 | |
to heart-warming present-day mini movies about infested trampolines. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:28 | |
Adverts aren't the only programmes on at Christmas - | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
there are also programmes on at Christmas. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
For decades, Christmas television has been an enchanting place, | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
a magical land where people danced and sang in a doomed attempt | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
to convey the sheer magic of Christmas. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
A time in which newsreaders cavorted with comedians, | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
and real live snowmen were gathered from the wild | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
and encouraged to sing their | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
haunting traditional songs in the studio. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
THEY SING "JINGLE BELLS" | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
But perhaps the most reassuring Christmas programme is EastEnders, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
which for years has provided an important public service | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
by depicting worse families having an even shitter time than yours. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:25 | |
You're lying! | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
-What are you doing? -Bianca! | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
What are you doing?! | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
Films are a mainstay at Christmas | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
and one familiar film is the searing musical The Sound Of Music, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
which is about a woman who sings to hills about hills in the hills. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:45 | |
# The hills are alive with the sound of music... # | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
It's always on at Christmas, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
probably because it's got nuns in it so you think about Jesus. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
And also Nazis, | 0:26:56 | 0:26:58 | |
so you think about The Great Escape, which is probably on on Boxing Day. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
But the most Christmassy film of all time is also the most exciting, | 0:27:02 | 0:27:07 | |
Die Hard. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:09 | |
People think Die Hard is a gripping and exciting action film, | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
just because, as you can see, it is, | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
but it's also a heart-warming Yuletide story | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
full of the magic of Christmas. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:20 | |
It's got everything... | 0:27:20 | 0:27:22 | |
'Singing...' HE SCREAMS | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
'..a man up a chimney...' | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
Warming yourself in front of a roaring fire... | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
Shit! | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
'..while the snow flutters down outside.' | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
Brotherly love... | 0:27:36 | 0:27:37 | |
'Hey, look, I love you... | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
'So do a lot of the other guys.' | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
..cranberry sauce, excessive sherry drinking... | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
God, that man looks really pissed. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
..season's greetings... | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:53 | |
..your dad conked out in a chair wearing a Santa hat in his Christmas | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
jumper, angels majestically soaring through the air and, of course, | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
Jesus Christ Powell. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:03 | |
Jesus Christ, Powell! | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
TV's becoming a thing of the olden past, like sundials or ploughs, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
because, today, everyone has their own little screen, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
so they can ignore their immediate surroundings on an individual basis | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
instead of as part of a collective effort. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
We're often told to feel sorry for those who are alone at Christmas, | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
but these days that's all of us and it's brilliant. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
Best of all, this kind of technology | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
is set to become more immersive than ever. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
For instance, this man from the year 2018 | 0:28:32 | 0:28:36 | |
is enjoying a virtual Christmas with a family | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
of characters from the Nintendo universe. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
Meanwhile, this man is experiencing the true meaning of Christmas by | 0:28:42 | 0:28:46 | |
giving birth to a virtual baby Jesus in a stable made of polygons. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
HE SCREAMS | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
Today, the true meaning of Christmas is a mystery, | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
wrapped up in sherry and Monopoly and monkey nuts, | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
but at least, at this time of togetherness and warmth, | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
we can all agree what the true spirit of Christmas is... | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
Baileys. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:09 | |
SHE SLURPS NOISILY | 0:29:10 | 0:29:12 | |
Merry Christmas and a very New Year. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:17 |